Some may disagree, but I think we have reached the point where we can say that journalists in the mainstream press are going to have trouble keeping the religion angle out of the coverage of the Fort Hood trial of U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan. It will be hard to stay faith-free, now that Hasan wants to be granted the death penalty — to die the death of a martyr. He also has offered his apologies that he didn’t... Read more
You might recall that the New York Times told readers Kermit Gosnell was on trial for killing fetuses rather than newborns. There was a similar problem at USA Today. We noted when a reporter for a different outlet apologized for calling a newborn child a fetus. So the problems with journalists using “fetus” to describe children even after they born make the old debates on whether it’s appropriate to use the term in stories about children prior to their birth... Read more
In one of the most famous Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Silver Blaze, the clue that led to identifying the criminal was a dog that didn’t bark. “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” ask the Chief of Police. “Yes—to the curious incident of the dog in the night time.” “But the dog did nothing in the night-time.” Holmes, “Ah—that was the curious incident.” In the media’s coverage of religion, we often stumble upon these “curious... Read more
Journalists who try to cover the life and teachings of Deepak Chopra always face the same question: How much ink should they dedicate to the debates about whether his fusion of Hinduism and science are secular or sacred? In other words, is this man a religious leader who is teaching specific doctrines or not? The skeptics at Sceptic.com state the issue this way, coming from — obviously — a totally nonreligious perspective (as opposed to the views of Chopra critics... Read more
It is my fallen nature that causes me to delight in stories about hypocrisy. We are all hypocrites if we use that term to mean we behave in ways contrary to the ideals we espouse. Technically that’s not what hypocrisy means. Rather it refers to claiming to believe something different than what one believes. Or as Wikipedia puts it “Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have.”... Read more
It’s becoming clear that The Dallas Morning News has no regard for the F-word. Faith, that is. I made that statement last month after the Texas newspaper allowed holy ghosts to haunt yet another major profile. But I come today not to bury the Morning News, but to praise it: Apparently, somebody at the highest echelon of that newspaper reads GetReligion and decided to prove me wrong. This was the headline at the top of the front page a week ago Sunday: Healing... Read more
The following is a picky little post about a story that kind of got under my skin today. It’s a human-interest story that, on one level, is about sports. But it’s not really a sports story. Please keep reading. No, it’s a tear-jerker piece from The Tampa Bay Times about a dying man who is clearly a serious baseball fan and, to some degree, he is a serious Christian believer. Maybe. You can’t really tell. This story is one or... Read more
Before we look at a news story from The Tennessean, a little background. Last week I read a fascinating piece in First Things about a particular kerfuffle in one denomination’s hymnal development. It began: In his 1934 book, The Kingdom of God in America, H. Richard Niebuhr depicted the creed of liberal Protestant theology, which was called “modernism” in those days, in these famous words: “A God without wrath brought man without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the... Read more
The Court of Appeal for England and Wales has upheld the blanket ban on euthanasia and assisted suicide, holding there is no “right to die” under British and European Community law. The court in Nicklinson & Anor, R (on the application of) v A Primary Care Trust [2013] EWCA Civ 961 held there was no legal, moral or social need to rethink Parliament’s prohibition on euthanasia. However, if you turned to The Independent to find out what happened you might well be excused... Read more
The previous week gave us a lot to talk about here at GetReligion. Check out these GetReligion posts from Friday alone for a few bad examples of media coverage (here, here and here). In the latest Crossroads podcast, host Todd Wilken and I chatted about some of the early problems with media coverage of Pope Francis’ remarks on blackmailing people for sins they’d repented of. See my posts Pope Francis’ 1st miracle: media coverage of mercy and Media obsession dangers:... Read more
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